Ye JX, Huang LQ, Yang SL. Exploring the relationship between death anxiety and empathy among nursing students at an early stage of their clinical internships. World J Psychiatry 2025; 15(7): 106845 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i7.106845]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Shi-Lai Yang, School of Nursing, Quanzhou Medical College, No. 2 Anji Road, Quanzhou 362000, Fujian Province, China. 247872083@qq.com
Research Domain of This Article
Psychology, Educational
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Psychiatry. Jul 19, 2025; 15(7): 106845 Published online Jul 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i7.106845
Exploring the relationship between death anxiety and empathy among nursing students at an early stage of their clinical internships
Jian-Xin Ye, Li-Qiu Huang, Shi-Lai Yang
Jian-Xin Ye, Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen 361000, Fujian Province, China
Li-Qiu Huang, Department of Nephrology, Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Xiamen University, Xiamen 361000, Fujian Province, China
Shi-Lai Yang, School of Nursing, Quanzhou Medical College, Quanzhou 362000, Fujian Province, China
Co-first authors: Jian-Xin Ye and Li-Qiu Huang.
Author contributions: Yang SL and Ye JX conceptualized the overall research design; Ye JX and Huang LQ were responsible for enrollment and engaging in data collection, and responsible for analysis the data; Ye JX, Huang LQ and Yang SL played pivotal roles in writing and revising this manuscript.
Supported by 2021 Annual Routine Project of the 14th Five-Year Plan of Fujian Education Science, No. FJJKGZ21-110.
Institutional review board statement: This study has ethics approval by ethics review of Medical Ethics Review Committee of Quanzhou Medical College (2023003).
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—a checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement— a checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: The raw data can be obtained from the corresponding author.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Shi-Lai Yang, School of Nursing, Quanzhou Medical College, No. 2 Anji Road, Quanzhou 362000, Fujian Province, China. 247872083@qq.com
Received: March 16, 2025 Revised: April 21, 2025 Accepted: May 20, 2025 Published online: July 19, 2025 Processing time: 116 Days and 14.7 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Death anxiety is a common emotional response to death, and it varies in intensity across cultures and regions. However, there is a paucity of research on death anxiety among nursing students during their clinical internship, especially in relation to their emotional experiences and behavioral responses.
AIM
To explore the relationship between empathy and death anxiety as well as to identify factors influencing students’ empathetic skills during their initial clinical experiences.
METHODS
This cross-sectional study included 473 nursing students enrolled from across vocational colleges in Quanzhou (Fujian Province, China) during June–July 2023. These students were trained at three Grade-A general hospitals. The Empathy Scale and Death Anxiety Scale were applied to assess their empathetic skills and death anxiety levels during the early stages of the clinical internship. Data analyses employed descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, independent sample t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, and multiple linear regression analysis.
RESULTS
The mean death anxiety score was 46.33 ± 6.29, with 95.6% of participants exhibiting high death anxiety. The mean scores across dimensions were as follows: Cognitive-affective, 18.08 ± 3.15; pain and illness, 13.25 ± 2.41; awareness of the passage of time, 5.58 ± 1.40; stimuli related to death, 9.40 ± 1.56. The mean empathy score was 63.78 ± 11.49. Regression analysis revealed that students’ subject major, total death anxiety level, and pain and stress dimensions acted as significant predictors of their empathetic skills during early clinical practice (P < 0.05).
CONCLUSION
Vocational nursing students, especially those in midwifery with higher death anxiety, exhibited lower empathetic skills during the early stages of their clinical internship. Nursing educators should take measures to enhance the empathetic skills of students through appropriate training and support for students with high death anxiety levels.
Core Tip: This study examined death anxiety as an internal psychological response and empathy as an external behavioral expression. The results provided a clearer understanding of the psychological changes occurring in nursing students during the early stages of their clinical training.
